Saturday, February 07, 2015

Easing back into blogging links

Because you can never have too many pictures of Lanyu.

Links... links... links... Coming back into the world from Lanyu, catching up on the news...

Plane crash: Dominating the news cycle, the crash in Taipei occurred as we waited in the airport in Taipei. On Thursday waiting in the airport we got to see the dashboard video again and again, o joy. At present, it is looking like the plane informed the pilots that the wrong engine had failed, and they killed their one good engine thinking it had failed. The plane hit the water without power. The Diplomat's Shannon Tiezzi has a look at the cross strait political farces that resulted. BTW, there is a whole brigade of idiots out there getting attention saying that the plane crash is a fake (not kidding).

Government resignations: People continue to exit the Ma Administration. Ma's longtime hatchet man King Pu-tsun became the latest to leave this week. Wendell Minnick looks at Defense changes in DefNews.

South China Sea: Taiwan using Chinese shipper to schlep stuff to South China Island. Be serious. Sometimes it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the Ma government is building this stuff for the Chinese. US suggests Japan patrol in South China Sea, China threatens ADIZ. From Jamestown Brief. We're heading towards war here, like a car driving along a cliff face at night without the lights on. Will no one in the US wake up, put an end to the stupidity in the Middle East, and reconfigure our policy toward Europe and Asia, where the money and power are?

DPP: The KMT news organ rounded up reports on the DPP presidential primary. Current Tainan mayor William Lai is being touted as alternative to Tsai Ing-wen. Seems like building him up for 2020 and beyond, for he has no name recognition up north at present and tiny Tainan can hardly be considered a base. Time to move him up to New Taipei City or similar, and let him run there. A Taiwan Thinktank (pro-Green) poll says 90% identify as Taiwanese when given only one choice.

KMT: Chairman Eric Chu once again insists he will complete his term as New Taipei City mayor. Chu also doesn't like plan to combine legislative and presidential elections instead of separating them, obviously realizing that this would be bad for the KMT since more pan-Greens would turn out. His reasoning is good, however, since a Jan election would leave a four month interregnum before the new President took office. What mischief Ma will get up to in that period? KMT members of the Tainan City Council impeach Mayor Lai of Tainan because he won't attend meetings since the council's speakership was apparently bought via bribery.

Pay attention: the new National Development Council head is up-and-coming Woody Duh. The NDC is going to have a quietly huge influence on infrastructure and the construction-industrial state in Taiwan, because the NDC is where the policies for that are going to be drafted. Putting Duh in charge is likely a signal that he is destined for greater things.

Michael Mazza advises Japan to sell Taiwan Soryu subs. I've been advocating Japan sell Taiwan subs for quite a while now; good to see other people finally catching up. Why a Free Taiwan is vital for Japan's security, from ACT

NOT TAIWAN: The fascinating, appalling tale of "love jihadi" Hindu nationalists in Uttar Pradesh who prevent Hindu girls from running off with Muslim boys. Would be comically stupid if it wasn't so serious, divisive, and violent.

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A Chinese ship traveling to Itu Aba would have a great opportunity to map the ocean floor around the island and even in the port. I wonder if the Taiwanese had the common sense to make sure that wouldn't happen.

It's not surprising that Communist China would want to become a military superpower and was able to fool the US for a while. That would have been true during the Cold War when the US was preoccupied with the Soviet Union and thought of China as a useful partner. However, it's hard to believe that the US has not been aware of growing Chinese military capabilities for the past 20 years. But yet it's also hard to think China is so formidable that a 100-year plan could vault them past the US. That seems be an excessively high view of their scientific and military capabilties.

The Diplomat's multiculturalism piece has good points, but the title is misleading. It should be Taiwan's growing need to be more multicultural.CP

The article on Multiculturalism is interesting but misrepresents who the foreigners are. It lists 4 countries of origin including America and Japan. But according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Taiwan the top four are Indonesia, Vietnam, Phillippines and Thailand, and the numbers aren't even close. Phillippines and Thailand have 85 thousand and 67 thousand while Japan and America only have 12 thousand and 10 thousand immigrants to Taiwan.

Also I suspect their wrong when they say that ". In 2014, for the first time, the number of first and second-generation immigrants living in Taiwan exceeded the population of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples." Didn't the immigrants from China in the 1940s and 1950s far outnumber the aborigines, and didn't their "first and second generation" continue to outnumber them for decades?

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